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Topic: Super 8s (Read 26155 times)

A simple exercise would be to ask congress delegates the following."Who here is from a junior club? Put up your hand.""Who here is from an intermediate club? Put up your hand.""Who here is from a senior club? Put up your hand."

"Now, leave your hand up if you think every club in your county should play in an ungraded championship with one winner at the end of it all."

I guarantee you the junior & intermediate lads wouldn't be long taking their hands down.

All competitive sport creates elitism by its very nature.Are you going to let Waterford get a bye to the final or what?Senior/Inter/Junior for the AI is so logical it's a no brainer but anyone here over 40 won't live to see it.You can still have your Provincials with everyone entering and a League of some sort too if you want.

My main concern in all of this is that we reduce the number of trophies being handed out from 5 to 1 in championship terms. That mightn't seem a huge issue for some but those counties outside the big 3 it's often a rare and historic chance to nail down some silverware.

For example last year Tyrone would have just had a "good year" with f**k all really to show for it if there were no provincial championship. Quality footballers such as Dermot McCabe, Conor McManus, Mark Breheny, Karl Mannion, Kevin Cassidy amongst others would have f**k all to show for their careers bar the piecemeal allstars.

I have to laugh that everyone thinks that they've imagined the ideal championship and the cure for all our ills. People heralded the back door as the tonic for the weaker teams. The decade before the back door produced 7 different winners of the All Ireland and a variety of runners -up. The decade after the back door produced only 5. This decade has produced only 3 so far and there'd be slim odds that it will surpass 5.

The back door was designed to give weaker teams a second chance.By default, this also meant that stronger teams also got a second chance.Don't think anyone really though it would result in the likes of Carlow winning an All-Ireland.It did however result in 'middle-tier' teams like Fermanagh & Sligo progressing further in the championship than they could have hoped to under the previous structure.

I can understand why he big counties like Dublin, Mayo, Kerry etc voting in favour of these proposals. What I don't understand is how delegates from smaller counties would vote for these proposals if they genuinely have no heir counties best interest at heart. It's not as if Padraic Duffy is touring the country to try and sell his proposals around the counties!!

I can understand why he big counties like Dublin, Mayo, Kerry etc voting in favour of these proposals. What I don't understand is how delegates from smaller counties would vote for these proposals if they genuinely have no heir counties best interest at heart. It's not as if Padraic Duffy is touring the country to try and sell his proposals around the counties!!

Duffy's probably greasing the wheels with wink-nod offers of development grants and the like. You scratch my back I'll scratch yours and all that shite. Don't underestimate turkeys' ability to vote for Christmas..

I can understand why he big counties like Dublin, Mayo, Kerry etc voting in favour of these proposals. What I don't understand is how delegates from smaller counties would vote for these proposals if they genuinely have no heir counties best interest at heart. It's not as if Padraic Duffy is touring the country to try and sell his proposals around the counties!!

They've added in a sweetener for weaker counties by giving division 3 and 4 counties home advantage in the qualifiers. The proposals also say that 'A significant proportion of this increase (cash from the super 8s) should be ring-fenced for development of our games in less successful counties.'

While the proposals will be of little real benefit to the smaller counties, they're still a bit better than what's currently there.

I can understand why he big counties like Dublin, Mayo, Kerry etc voting in favour of these proposals. What I don't understand is how delegates from smaller counties would vote for these proposals if they genuinely have no heir counties best interest at heart. It's not as if Padraic Duffy is touring the country to try and sell his proposals around the counties!!

Duffy's probably greasing the wheels with wink-nod offers of development grants and the like. You scratch my back I'll scratch yours and all that shite. Don't underestimate turkeys' ability to vote for Christmas..

Wouldn't surprise me. Its ridiculous that he has been going around canvassing support for this motion. Then you have his fellow county man Dick Clerkin wheeled out last night to add weight to the argument. They are telling everyone how to vote, only in Ireland could this happen.

In all honestly none of these new proposals will mean f**k all. The big counties will still win out, players will still be torn away from their clubs and there will still be hammerings of weaker sides. No system will be much better than what's there already as there all pretty similar. The only mark of any change which will win out will be the continued inexonerable slide towards a semi-professional/ professional elite and economic interests of Mckenna et al.

As someone said before hand, its the weaker counties who need more games, not the biggest. How can they improve if they don't get more games. Leitrim may get 2/3 games in FBD League, 7 in league and 2 in cship. They will not improve on this. GLOSSED OVER

It's the same with the defensive system and puke football. They introduced the mark. This still doesn't stop teams from playing this ultra defensive system. GLOSSED OVER

ON TWO OCCASIONS THEY HAVE FAILED TO ADDRESS THE PROPER ISSUES.

What are all the county's consensuses on this matter does anyone know? will they get 2/3?

theticklemister, if Leitrim wanted to/were able to improve, why wouldn't they start with the league? Set out goals to get promoted to Division 3 in the x years. That would be a step forward, interest among all GAA people in the county would increase I'd have thought. Try to progress that way and take it from there. If you try to let teams like Leitrim have more competitive games, aren't they going to be of a similar nature to what they encounter in Division 4 already, only in the summer?

As for the senior, intermediate, junior proposals, how many times does it need to be said that they players from the weaker counties don't want it? They also want to retain the provincials.

For all those that love the Duffy-bashing and telling us what the cheeky devil is really up to (greasing wheels and such), could you imagine if he'd come up with a proposal that got rid of either of these when players from the weaker counties wanted them retained?

Emeralda since when did players from the weaker Counties become the ruling body if the GAA?The 3 grades would give weaker Counties a Summer competition they'd have a chance of winning and getting promoted to a higher grade. The present system more often than not gives them 2 defeats sometimes by big margins.It's not a revolutionary proposal - it already happens across the 32 Counties in club Championships.